Sup Sup Forums, who wants to talk philosophy? I'll start with a question: Is human life inherently unhappy...

sup Sup Forums, who wants to talk philosophy? I'll start with a question: Is human life inherently unhappy, or is discontent a result of societal influence?

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Bump, really wanna discuss this but I have to sleep

If you go to the poorest places on earth, you'll realize they are happier than you. They have AIDS, they don't have enough food, or clean water, their family members and friends get killed by diseases or war and they are happy. like WTF man

bruh I thought more people would have jumped on to this. I'll probably make an attempt at another thread like this in the next few days if this doesnt go anywhere, but shit Sup Forums I thought y'all loved this kinda stuff

2, because media and lack of perspective

Next question please.

Think about it on the organic level! We're animals, all animals experience conflict and struggle in their environment. But we're able to consider time and the layers of existence a lot more than animals. Everything we consider to be suffering or joy is intensified because of our ability to compare and contrast with other experiences.

The only thing that causes man to strive is discontent with his situation. Unhappiness with something (usually) makes us do something about it. At the same time, society is so spread out and vast these days that instead of taking our happiness into our own hands, we just take it.

So we use facebook and stupid bullshit to keep us distracted.

I'm high as balls so does that make any sense?

I'd love to discuss this, but I believe btards are still waiting in the wings to spam whatever we start.
I believe it to only be a relative difference, mainly covered by a burden of knowledge. Those privileged enough to be born in better situated countries have access to simple means of seeing the world. On another hand, those without access are more apt to err on a humble side, there is no relation to compare it to. For contrast, see how we speak of the world's problems as a generality, and others speak of their general problems in their "world."
We see more problems only because we were made aware of their existence.
I hope i didn't stray too far, op

Unhappiness is a result of loneliness, we are unhappy when we are lonely because when we are with people we are more likely to make relationships with them which encourage humans' use of teamwork to overcome obstacles, and you're unhappy when you're single because if you are dating someone you are more likely to re produce, teamwork and reproduction, are the two things you'd be lacking if you're alone, so your body makes you sad so that you want friends and a sexual partner.

I don't think you have a lick of evidence to back that up.

I really like this thread. I think it's a result of social influence.

Does God feel pain or pleasure? His impassibility seems certain but it's hard to think he doesn't find pleasure in loving us. It's a conundrum.

It's impossible is what it is.

You can't be All knowing, All powerful AND All loving in this world. It's impossible, there's too much pain and suffering that he lets go on for him to be.

Unless you figure out what god you're talking about your question is really vague.

We know nothing about him, so how can we even think about what he feels.?

Both. Discontent can arise as a result of societal influence, but at the same time one can be unhappy without a third party as the reason.

You can be uninfluenced by society but still feel unfulfilled, and therefore unhappy. That isn't to say that life is inherently unhappy (meaning that it is for all intents and purposes, not a pleasant life) but it is certainly there regardless of outside factors.

While that's true, I'm still convinced of what I said. I just base that idea of what I heard from other people and TV and whatnot. Just to be clear I'm talking about the general happiness, I think they suffer a lot too but they're still happy.

My God is a God that can create contradictions. If he could not then he would not be God. I know he loves me. I just was wondering if it gave him pleasure as much as it does me.

As Italian Leopardi teaches us, life is a passage from a state of unconscious happiness to one of conscious sadness. Life make us unhappy because of the things we cannot have and the things we cannot be. Leopardi himself was too much of a fag to go in the only direction possible: total acceptance and ascesis.

I would argue that the people of a developed nation have a higher general happiness than somewhere like Somalia or Afghanistan.

Sure, you don't have to worry about parking lots or divorced parents, but you have things like starving, and dead parents.

indeed
humans are slaves , but it is there own doing
once the subject has had enough suffering it will break free.
profit????

if you ever go to africa you will see how believing that we are generally more happy than them is bullshit. Even as they starve, you will find more happiness there than here.

>when you choose suffering

pleasure will invariably be the result?

Okay you have my attention now. But is this from personal experience or just from what you've seen on the news? Because I've seen the same shit and to me it just seems like they aren't doing too well.

I'm not unhappy, so human life can't be inherently unhappy. q.e.d.

Very flawed.

I have often mused to myself as to why evil exists in this world. I am assuming that your God is the Christian one, forgive me if I am wrong.

But, being familiar with Christianity, I know that it teaches that evil exists as a result of God giving humans free will, and that God is not involved in the process of evil by virtue of removing his grace from the sinful act.

However, why would an all powerful being desire to create a being with free will? Why would it desire to create at all? As an answer to the former, the official Christian teaching is that because God wants us to freely choose him. But why is that?

The only logical conclusion that I can think of is that the Christian God wants to feel loved. He wants to know that something will choose him freely without his powerfulness forcing it to. God has a classic case of low self esteem. The whole reason the universe exists is as a coping mechanism for him. We are to God what anime is to the NEET. An escape, an assurance that he is loved.

Elaborate

Just because you are happy doesn't mean human life can't be inherently unhappy. That's very narrow minded.

there is a question that's been bugging for years: what exactly is free will?

we all know that what happened to us in our pasts shape us also genetics and all that shit so can we really blame someone who did something bad? morally that is, as far as the law goes sure lock them up but let's say a nigger robs a bank and there are two options either he didn't know it was bad or he knew it was bad and he did it anyway. if he didn't know it then we can't blame him, if he knew it then why did he do it? because he is stupid? he didn't choose to be stupid so it's not his fault. he's just simply evil? then he didn't choose to be evil BUT if he did actually choose to be evil then why did he do it?

this could go on all day long but my point is: can we really hold accountable anyone for anything?

I can definitely see where you can derive that. He does seem needy. But wouldn't you be lonely if you found yourself to be the only thing. Would you not strive to make a "wilson" to cope.

Maybe God shares a longing to be two in a world where there is only one.

youtube.com/watch?v=g3YXQ2i9RKc

My talkings

No. We are falling and bouncing around at random. We have no control. The concept of free will is only makes sense in a world where you can know the future. Since we do not know the future we should do whatever we want.

I would argue that while they may experience worse things, their perception and interpretation of those things is different.
They seem to be fairly hardened to most of the harshness of reality.

Maybe that's also why religion seems to play a larger role in countries like that. As a tool people use to recontextualize their experiences so that they are perceived as less traumatic.

but doesn't that make good and bad obsolete? nothing is good nor bad not even a little and everything is just... is?

inherently unhappy
due to it's subjectivity
and the perception of others

I don't belive in good or bad just a broad grey zone of morality. I would like to be live natural law theory but it's got some screws. But if there is a God, does he make things good. Or does God tell us to do good things because they are good things.

The way our brains are wired it reacts stronger towards pain than to pleasure. Take that as you will.

>you guys suck at philo btw been hearning nothing but long winded garbage.

The truth is life is good , life is always good, the cause for all the discontent is more along the lines of

>people are dead , they are infact not living

this is the main problem

just blow your fucking load all over the place and ull know what i mean.

honestly i don't think there is a higher being looking at us and meddling in out lives, that just sounds too much like a fairy tale. let's not forget how insignificant we are in the great scheme of things.

but the fact that i can't actually hold accountable for anything they do... i don't like it one bit

From a cynical of view:
For the purpose of determining wether someone should be held responsible for his actions, it doesn't matter if there is free will or not.

If my dog does something I don't like, I'll punish him. I don't give a shit wether it possesses free will or not, all I care about is that it'll associate unwanted behaviour with punishment.

The point of punishment is to dissuade further transgressions.
A few hundred years ago, we just flayed criminals in the marketplace, today we lock them up; the purpose is still the same.

the point isn't really to change the behavior tho. I only want to understand why people do the things they do because if this is true then in theory we could program a baby from the second it was born and plan his entire life with perfect accuracy and he'd still think it's his life.

laplace's demon is semi-related to this topic

I think that if there are aliens and they have managed to achieve the level of technology required for interstellar travel without wiping each other out using that same technology, it'll be very likely that their society is likely extremely peaceful and fairly defenseless.

With the technological progress of civilizations rises it's capability to cause destruction.
We have nukes that can wipe out entire cities in one strike and we have enough of them to kill pretty much all life on earth.
Imagine the kind of destruction that a civilization capable of interstellar travel could cause.

yeah sure we have a big arsenal of weapons but i mean out actual size in the universe. even if we'd travell to a thousand different planets and carpet bomb them all with nukes we'd still be insignificant

Alright.

There are two ways to arrive at happiness. One of them is through sheer happenstance. This is extraordinarily rare and practically impossible to maintain. It's out of the question for us.

The second alternative is the only alternative for stable happiness.
Just imagine for a moment what people of the past centuries would've done to live with your material standard if only for a day. We far exceed the most luxurious royalties. Somehow in this situation people are unhappy. Why? Because none of materialism has anything to do with happiness, save for covering the basic needs of survival. It is both plainly apparent and scientifically proven to be so. The other 99% is an orchestrated means for distraction to keep you too busy from investigating into the nature of happiness and equally important inquiries.
This derail is the reason for unhappiness - it's the source of frustration in your life; the empty promises of commercialism, the demands imposed on us by societal institutions, endless conditioning of fear, guilt, shame, addiction. It's why you feel confused, full stop. It's rigged to inhibit your autonomy; to bind you in terms, in law, and in stigma.
These structures must be understood in order to begin the work of untangling oneself and that is why distraction is such a central point in this picture. Having dealt with it, you are free to select. Having selected wisely, you can slip out of the iron fist of psychological conditioning. Beyond that point is when you can be legitimately happy. And what's more is that, having freed yourself psychologically, physical circumstances cannot obstruct you for very long either.

In order to model a system, you have to need a system that is more complex than the system you're trying to predict.

It can't yield 100% accurate results if it has less complexity than the system you're trying to model if it's less complex and if it has the same complexity, it is effectively just a replication.

Now in order to fully model a system, you must translate every single aspect of the syetem into your simulation.
If this is achieved, the modelling system practically contains the system that is being modelled with some additional facilities to facilitate simulation and perhaps manipulation.

Now my point is essentially that the fact that a system can be predicted or manipulated doesn't change it's essence.
I't still the same irreducible archetype.

My point is that their society has likely done away with the aggressions that we as humans display against other.

As technology becomes more powerful, you can't afford to have civil wars or terrorism because the destruction could very well result in the extinction of the entire species.